From sex to texts, Shadowbox Live celebrates its best sketches of 2019
Shadowbox Live is launching its new year by celebrating the best of its past year.
“Wild Nights: The Greatest Hits of 2019,” a collection of eight companycreated sketches and nine songs from 2019 productions, will open Thursday in the Brewery District.
“It’s a celebration,” writer-performer Jimmy Mak said. “We always hope the audience will like all our sketches, but they definitely tell us which they like best.”
Director Julie Klein’s favorite sketch is “Dark Knight of Passion.”
“It’s basically Batman (Mak) having a one-night stand,” she said. “I love the premise and how desperate Batman becomes. He comes off as very clinging, wanting to continue to date after their encounter, but she just isn’t that interested.
“We don’t normally picture a superhero as weak, but you find out that he’s not that much different than you or I.”
Choreographer-performer Katy Psenicka appears in three sketches.
She plays the girlfriend In “Buggin’ Out,” about a couple’s date visiting the
butterfly exhibit at Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.
“It’s about a man with a fear of bugs,” Psenicka said. “In order to get over his fear, his therapist recommends he take his date to the butterfly exhibit.”
David Whitehouse plays the boyfriend, with Jamie Barrow as the life-sized butterfly that antagonizes him only when the girlfriend is away taking photos.
“Every time she comes back, the butterfly switches back to super innocence,” Psenicka said. “It’s funny to juxtapose his gangster personality, which he shows to David, with his beautiful butterfly wings.”
Psenicka plays a mom in
“Snap to It,” a sketch about parents encouraging their 15-year-old son (John Boyd) to go beyond texting to ask his girlfriend for a date.
“They’re old-fashioned parents who don’t understand why their son spends all his time texting and face-timing this girl who lives next door,” Psenicka said. “When the dad pushes for him to go out on a date and kiss her, the son is mortified.”
Psenicka plays the TV game-show host in “Monster Dating Game,” about a bachelorette (Amy Lay) asking questions of three hidden bachelors: Dracula (Boyd), Frankenstein (Whitehouse) and the Wolfman (Brandon Anderson).
“The smarmy host tries to keep the game show together, but then it all goes crazy,” Psenicka said. “What makes it ripe for humor is that we take a familiar format from ‘The Dating Game’ and turn it on its ear.”
Mak conceived of and portrays a literate guy in “Sexting for a Spell,” about phone texting.
“I was inspired by how all the grammatical errors and misspellings drive me crazy on social media,” Mak said. “I thought it might be funny to have the guy come back after a hot date and start going back and forth with hot texting. But when she keeps misspelling words, he just can’t let it go.”
“Once Upon a Crime” expands and transforms the “Three Little Pigs” fable into a noir mystery.
“It’s one of our biggest, most ambitious and complex sketches,” Mak said, “because it retells a familiar story in a fun, new way with sound effects, slapstick humor and bad jokes.”
Mak plays Jack Sprat, who could eat no fat.
“Now Jack can’t eat gluten, either,” Mak said. “The sketch has a 1940s feel to it. Jack Sprat is like Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade in ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ while Amy Lay plays the Big Bad Wolf’s wife as a femme fatale.”
Shadowbox’s popular “bests” shows attract both newcomers and regulars, Mak said.
“Some people come just to our “best of” show, but most theatergoers seem to want to see their favorite sketches again . ... It’s why you come back to your favorite Monty Python or ‘Saturday Night Live’ sketches.”